Private Astronaut Taxi Development Entering Final Phase

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WASHINGTON — NASA on July 19 released a draft solicitation for
the fourth and final development phase of its Commercial Crew
Program, which is still expected to result in a crewed space
launch to the International Space Station from U.S. soil by late
2017, according to the document.

The
Commercial Crew Program is a NASA effort that subsidizes
commercial development of systems to ferry astronauts to and from
the space station. According to the draft solicitation, there
would be two such flights per year, once NASA places its first
task order for a crewed flight.

Before NASA releases the final solicitation this fall, the agency
will host a pre-solicitation conference with industry at the
Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Aug. 1 and 2, according to the
draft. As expected, the contract will be a fixed-priced deal
administered under the Federal Acquisition Regulations. So far,
NASA has mostly relied on funded Space Act Agreements to
subsidize development of commercially designed spacecraft.

While the competition is nominally free and open, it is generally
believed that the companies with the best chance are those NASA
is already funding as part of the third round of the Commercial
Crew Program: Boeing Space Exploration Systems, Houston; Sierra
Nevada Corp.’s Space Systems of Louisville, Colo.; and Space
Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif.

Boeing and SpaceX are working on capsules, while Sierra Nevada
has a lifting-body design. All three spacecraft could seat seven
people. Boeing and Sierra Nevada plan to launch aboard United
Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket, while SpaceX plans to use
whatever iteration of its own Falcon 9 rocket is in operation in
2017.

If the schedule and funding hold, the planned demo flight — part
of what NASA is calling the Commercial Crew Transportation
Capability Contract — would be the first crewed orbital
spaceflight launched from the U.S. since 2011, when the space shuttle
program ended.

NASA has repeatedly said it needs more than $800 million a year —
hundreds of millions more than Congress has ever given the
program — to meet the 2017 date and keep more than one company
involved with the program.